“Oh,” I replied, rather nervously, “I consider that eating with one’s hands is much more cleanly than using knives and forks which may not have been washed.”
The bash agha grunted and the others looked anxiously about. I realized that the old man was in one of his tyrannical moods.
At last one of the cooks came in and demanded if he should serve.
“Of course,” said the bash agha, “but where is the Caïd Madani?”
“He is saying his prayers,” ventured the Sheik Marhoun.
The bash agha said, “Alham dullah!” (“May Allah be praised”), but his eyes expressed, “Why the deuce must this idiot say his prayers at lunchtime?”
I was seized with an uncontrollable desire to laugh, so I went to the door and I saw, out on the plain, the tall figure of Madani, his burnous spread out before him, bowing and prostrating himself with that complete lack of self-consciousness so remarkable in all Mohammedan devotions.
However, he finished and, after remaining for a moment in meditation gazing out toward Mecca, he took up his burnous and returned to us.
A low table and tray were brought and placed before the bash agha. He motioned me to seat myself beside him, he called the kadi, and he called an aged agha who seemed to have suddenly grown out of the earth at the smell of food. The others went and squatted at a respectful distance from the old man and spoke in whispers.
A man passed round with a brass basin and jug and we all washed our hands in silence.